“Treat HGVs as though they’re on fire,” advises one cyclist. Another dubs them “London’s cyclist serial killers”. Even an HGV driver told me he felt the construction industry in particular was failing to address the risk lorries pose to those on bikes.

Earlier this month, a male cyclist was hit by a tipper truck in Fulham. His bike was a write-off — snapped in two under the lorry’s wheels — but somehow he only sustained a leg injury. A week earlier there were two HGV-cyclist collisions on the same day, with both women being taken to hospital with serious injuries. That evening, a vigil and die-in was held at Bank. Organised by the campaign group Stop Killing Cyclists, it was to commemorate Ying Tao, the 26-year-old accountant killed after being hit by a tipper truck on June 22, and Clifton James, who died in Harrow two days earlier.

Yesterday the London Cycling Campaign called on the Mayor to save lives by “ending lorry danger”; David Cameron has already told MPs from the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group that the Government will examine the possibility of a ban on lorries in city centres.

Eight cyclists have died on London’s roads this year. Seven victims were hit by lorries, four of which were involved in construction. Since January 2008, 99 cyclists over the age of 16 have been killed following collisions. The Evening Standard has found that more than half — 56 deaths — were the result of crashes with lorries. According to this paper’s investigation, the majority of those vehicles were involved in construction: 24 tipper trucks, three cement-mixers and two skip lorries.

“This is a construction industry problem and I’m worried it’s getting worse rather than better,” says HGV courier David, who asked me to use a pseudonym to protect his job. “I don’t think the minister of transport understands that.”

He believes the biggest issue concerns pay. “Because the guys are paid by load rather than per hour, they drive like maniacs. You can tell that with tippers in particular as their mirrors are protected by steel [guards]— that’s because they’re driving aggressively and trying to get through spaces they shouldn’t.” David fears this also leads drivers to take insufficient breaks. “You can’t get tipped before 7am and sites close at 4pm, so lots of drivers barely stop.”

The pay-per-load model is common in haulage work. Kate Cairns, the founder of the See Me Save Me campaign which calls for the elimination of deaths by HGV, backs this up. “A driver on a [safer urban driving] course told his boss it was impossible to drive across London safely within the specified delivery time, so he was given a warning. Three such warnings result in the sack.”

More progressive industry bosses recognise this problem. “We haven’t paid a bonus scheme or by the job for donkeys’ years,” says Jacqueline O’Donovan, the managing director of O’Donovan Waste Disposal. “But there are companies who pay that way because they choose to be on large projects that don’t pay well and have to get in X number of loads.”

FM Conway also pays its drivers a day rate. “That’s purely because of the safety risk,” says Joanne Garwood, the construction firm’s board director who’s in charge of health and safety. “It would be cheaper to pay by performance but our drivers are driving huge articulated vehicles — you have to be responsible... Many companies leave a bit to be desired [on safety].” Both FM Conway and O’Donovan are members of TfL’s Construction Logistics Cycle Safety working group (CLOCS), a voluntary standard to make the roads safer.

Driver training is paramount too. “Usually, HGV drivers have been driving for many years but the streetscape of London has changed drastically in that time,” adds O’Donovan. “They’re having to share the road much more with vulnerable road-users.” She’s a fan of TfL’s safer urban driving classes, during which HGV drivers spend half a day in a classroom, half on bikes. “It enlightens the driver on how a cyclist thinks,” she says. “Then, if the cyclist goes on an exchanging places course, that enlightens them on what a lorry driver can’t see.”

These classes can help to eliminate the idea that cyclists and HGV drivers are at war. Cairns agrees. “The change in drivers is remarkable. They may be grudging initially, but by the end they understand what it’s like to be on a bike. I don’t blame drivers, though. The blind eye turned to road risk is a systemic industry failure. Offsite safety needs to be addressed in the same way as onsite safety.”

London cyclists killed by lorries - in pictures

London cyclists killed by lorries - in pictures

1/5
Maria Karsa

Killed by truck: Maria Karsa was cycling to work at the Royal London hospital when she died

Facebook

2/5
Eilidh Cairns

3/5
Akis Kollaros with a friend

Tragic death: Akis Kollaros with a friend

4/5
Moira Gemmill

Tragic death: Moira Gemmill died while cycling near Lambeth Bridge

5/5
Venera Minakhmetova

Cairns’ sister Eilidh was killed by an HGV in February 2009, the driver of which, Joao Correia-Lopes, was found to have defective eyesight. He was later jailed for killing an elderly pedestrian. Her sister’s death turned Cairns into a cycling crusader. “Since I started the campaign we now have a national standard [for driving lorries].”

According to Charlie Lloyd, campaigns officer at the LCC and a former HGV driver, bigger firms tend to apply higher standards. “They’re conscious of their image. One of the problems is that there is a huge amount of sub-contracting. [Big firms] need to extend the rules from their lorries to the companies working for them.”

Garwood agrees: “We’ve tried to ensure that our supply chain has the same standards as us; that’s where other companies let themselves down.” She says that Conway has been “quite lucky” as a firm “but we’ve probably had some near-misses”. However, one of its subcontractors was involved in a fatal collision with a cyclist at Bow Junction.

An HGV — though the term gets used more loosely — is a vehicle that weighs more than 7.5 tonnes. Driving it requires a special C-licence, which is why a lot of lorries weigh just under the qualifying level. “There are lots of lorries at 7.5 tonnes — scaffolding lorries, for example,” explains Lloyd. “The drivers wouldn’t need a full HGV licence, only a C1 licence, which is much easier to get than a C-licence.”

So how can we make all lorries safer on London’s streets? Equipment is part of the solution. The Mayor’s Safer Lorry Scheme will demand that vehicles weighing more than 3.5 tonnes are fitted with mirrors that give a clearer view of cyclists and pedestrians in blind spots and side guards to stop cyclists being dragged under the wheels after a crash. It comes into force on September 1.

FM Conway’s fleet is fitted with forward-facing cameras for the blind spot, motion-censor alarms and advanced mirrors. It costs about £1,200 to retro-fit a vehicle with this extra-visibility. O’Donovan’s trucks have CCTV cameras and audible alarms on the censors, much like a “vehicle reversing” warning.

The height of cabs is another concern; if double-decker bus drivers are at street level, why must lorry drivers sit so high? Some construction firms seem resistant to lower lorry cabs because they have to drive on rough ground at building sites and rubble tips.

“The most dangerous lorries are 32-ton tippers and concrete-mixers,” explains Lloyd. “They are built to an off-road specification yet they spend 98 per cent of their time on public streets. These lorries are unfit for purpose. Construction site roads need to be made suitable for on-road vehicles.”

Lloyd points to new, potentially safer vehicle design. “Direct Vision” lorries such as the Mercedes Econic, which has lower cabs and bigger windows on the doors, come CLOCS-recommended.

O’Donovan believes that lorry manufacturers need to do more, though. “We are retrofitting with 10 or so add-ons. Manufacturers need to design out the blind spot — they need to step up to the plate.”

Although safety add-ons have fallen in price, upgrading vehicles is still expensive for small- and medium-sized firms. Garwood proposes finding a way to offset the investment. “Could there be a grant to pay for safer lorries, or maybe they get a reduction in the congestion charge?”

Even when additional safety equipment is fitted, though, it isn’t always maintained. On the Crossrail tipper truck that collided with Maria Karsa in September 2013, two of the three sensors were broken. The 21-year-old nursing assistant died in the Royal London Hospital a week later. However, sensors being faulty is not illegal, as they are fitted voluntarily.

At the most extreme end, some HGVs are simply not roadworthy. In May, a crackdown in the Square Mile saw 95 vehicles removed from the streets. The City of London police found HGVs with unsafe tyres or loads, and drivers without insurance or the correct licence.

O’Donovan makes the case for a broader cultural shift, where safety is paramount in picking a contractor. She feels her company is undercut by rivals who skimp on safety. “If a company wants to work with us, it sends us a compliance document. We tick all the boxes. Their compliance department then passes that to procurement. But they’re only interested in the pound note. Price is king. The client needs to tie their procurement with their compliance department.”

That should include government-funded organisations. At a CLOCS conference earlier this year, Sir Peter Hendy said that TfL was planning to demand that all contractors on its sites have direct-vision lorries.

“Local and national government should specify in all infrastructure procurement that companies meet the CLOCS standard — all the way down the supply chain,” argues Cairns. “This government refuses to legislate, so the least it could do is use its enormous buying power to stop these avoidable deaths.”

“There’s a complacency with the police, with the Crown Prosecution Service, with coroners,” says Cairns. “They don’t see it as a crime, they see it as an accident. This is about blind spots of vehicles, the blind eye of the industry and an unseeing justice system.” Her dream is “vision zero”. “We should be aiming for zero deaths. A vision where I have a dead sister is not acceptable.”

This isn’t just about protecting cyclists, either. “Twice as many pedestrians are killed by HGVs as cyclists,” notes Cairns. “If we remember that, the victim-blaming, ‘jumping-red-light’ arguments are clearly misplaced. HGVs are a danger to all of us — however we travel.”